Download vCF Upgrade Bundles using a proxy server

The usual way to download the upgrade bundles in VMware Cloud Foundation 3.5 is in the SDDC Manager Dashboard. After entering the credentials of your My VMware account under Administration –>Repository Settings in the SDDC Manager, you will find the bundles in Repository –> Bundles as described in the official documentation.
I won’t describe the whole process how to patch the vCF environment, as it is well documented in the vCF Operations and Administration Guide.

If however you have to use a proxy server to connect to the internet, you might face a couple of issues. I had to open a SR with VMware to be able to download the update bundles through a proxy server, and wanted to share the outcome of this investigation as it is not (yet) documented in the VMware documentation.

Problem description

To be able to update the Cloud Foundation environment (e.g. from 3.5 to 3.5.1) you first need to download the update bundles. To do so, you first have to define your My VMware credentials in the Repository Settings.

If your company enforces the use of a proxy server for internet connectivity, the validation of the My VMware credentials may fail due to a timeout error.

Please note that vCF 3.5 (and 3.5.1) does not support the use of any proxy server requiring authentication! If however you have the possibility to connect through a proxy which does not require specific authentication, you can follow the procedure below.

The solution

In SDDC Manager

The chapter “Use a Proxy Server to Download Upgrade Bundles” in the Administration guide describes how to configure a proxy server for the SDDC Manager by editing the file “application-prod.properties”, and then restart the lcm.

Note that the path in the documentation is not correct for version 3.5.“Open the /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm-app/conf/application-prod.properties file.” <– The correct path to the configuration file in my appliance was /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/conf/application-prod.properties.

– Connect to the SDDC appliance VM as vcf user, then type su to identify as root.

Download the update bundles manually

In my case the procedure as it was documented did not work, which is why I downloaded the bundles manually.
This process is documented in chapter “Manually Download Update Bundles”.

Basically you have to connect to the SDDC Manager appliance console, generate a markerfile, then download the markerfile and markerfile-md5, but also a tool called lcm-bundle-transfer-util to a PC which has access to the internet.

And there lies the issue. If the company-policy includes all servers and workstations, there’s a chance that the “computer with internet access” as it is being referred to in the documentation needs to connect through a proxy, too. This however is not documented.

When you try to download the bundles manually by using the lcm-bundle-transfer-util you enter following command (PowerShell or Command Line):